


The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

by BarnesnMrNoble



Category: Hawkeye (Comics), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Alcohol, Amazing friends, But what's new about that, Christmasy fluff, Clint being a koala bear, Gen, Mentions of Injuries, Mistletoe, Self Care, cuddle piles, general pairings - Freeform, seriously I love these four
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-19
Updated: 2019-12-19
Packaged: 2021-02-26 01:28:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21862063
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BarnesnMrNoble/pseuds/BarnesnMrNoble
Summary: Bucky is moving from the couch, carefully detangling himself from the pile of limbs him, Clint, and Tasha had become, before he really registers the soft knock on the door. Clint is half asleep, curled around Tasha like a koala bear relishing in the feeling of her hand carding through his freshly washed hair, while old Christmas reruns of dog cops play on the big living room tv.
Relationships: Clint Barton & Natasha Romanov, Clint Barton & Reader, James "Bucky" Barnes & Clint Barton, James "Bucky" Barnes & Natasha Romanov, James "Bucky" Barnes & Reader, Natasha Romanov & Reader
Comments: 1
Kudos: 12





	The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

**Author's Note:**

> Merry Christmas to the wonderful and darling Cuddlememerrick! I hope you enjoy dear! Much love from your no so secret santa!
> 
> The pairings in this are pretty vague, its open to interpretation for whoever you want to be together. I tried to keep the reader gender neutral but I may have missed some pronouns or descriptions so if you see any let me know! anyways! 
> 
> HAPPY READING!

Bucky is moving from the couch, carefully detangling himself from the pile of limbs him, Clint, and Tasha had become, before he really registers the soft knock on the door. Clint is half asleep, curled around Tasha like a koala bear relishing in the feeling of her hand carding through his freshly washed hair, while old christmas reruns of dog cops play on the big living room tv. He grunts softly when Bucky moves him over, but doesn’t give anymore than the grunt and nuzzles back into the brushing fingers over his scalp. Bucky understands, he feels all soft and cuddly in the god awfully ugly Christmas sweater Clint had brought over and made him wear. He isn’t complaining too much, it’s really soft. 

The door swings open with a loud jingle, damn bells Clint had put on every door as “decoration”. Why does it need to be made known that he is opening literally any door in the house, including the bathroom door. Clint really gets into the christmas spirit and Bucky may glare at him every time he ends up underneath a doorway, because yeah, every doorway also has mistletoe hanging from it and Clint always catches him and kisses his cheek. It makes it really hard for Bucky to keep up with his grinch-y attitude when Clint does nothing but make him smile all day long. 

“Hey, I didn’t think you got back until next week?” Bucky doesn’t hide his surprise when he opens the door to see you, and he is clearly happy to see you home finally. It’s been two months since you left on a minimal communication op. Nobody had heard from you in the last two weeks, and there had been no mention of you coming home early. Nevertheless, he is happy to see you and knows that Clint and Nat will be too. The four of you are nearly inseparable. 

You look a little worse for wear, a bruise or two forming on your cheek and around your eye, favoring your left leg and heavily leaning against the doorway. You leaning, seems less out of pain and more out of exhaustion, both physical and emotional. The question he asked nearly a minute ago finally reaches your brain, and you nod. It’s about all you have the energy to muster up as a response. Really you should've just gone to your own place, taken a quick shower and crashed for the next four days but you couldn’t override the part of you that needed to see them, that needed to have company after two very long months being completely alone and isolated. 

Bucky doesn’t even hesitate, he knows just what you need. He bends over and scoops you into his arms, bringing you over to the couch and plopping you down between Clint and Nat. He disappears for a minute and comes back with another one of Clint’s ugly sweaters, strips you of your tac vest, and carefully replaces it with the soft fabric of the sweater. He throws another look to Nat and they do their freaky “silent conversation with their eyes” thing and she kisses your cheek before she runs off down the hallway. With Nat’s departure and Bucky off doing other things again, Clint attaches to you like a sleepy, happy parasite, and you can’t help but join him. 

You don’t even realize you’ve fallen asleep until you start to wake up to Clint hovering over you with a washcloth, carefully wiping away the dirt and grime on your face. Apparently while you were out, he took the liberty of brushing your hair out and twisting it into a neat braid that pulled everything from your face. You have no idea how he manages, but anytime Clint plays with your hair, it becomes so soft and all you want to do is run your fingers through it. 

The apartment smells different than when you fell asleep, like chocolate. It smells like Bucky’s amazing chocolate chip cookies, and when you see him appear from the kitchen with a plate freshly baked cookies you can’t help the grabby hands you make at him. “Are those…?” There isn’t much need to finish the sentence, by the smile on his face Bucky knows what your about to ask and his dopey grin answers the question. He nods, before he goes back to grab drinks. 

Tasha glides into the room a moment later, three large pizzas and what looks like little jars of black and grey goop balancing precariously on top. With one hand, she grabs onto the jars and blindly throws them your direction and Clint barely moves to catch them both easily. Nat drops the pizza onto the coffee table, opening the first box and grabbing a piece. She holds it out for Clint and he cranes his neck to take a bite before grabbing one of the jars (of what, you haven’t figured that out yet but you’re too tired to try.) “Bucky, come on, hurry!” You snort quietly when you hear Bucky huff his way back into the room. “Yeah, yeah, I’m comin’.” 

“What's going on? I think I missed a lot in my impromptu nap.” Clint beams with his blindingly bright smile. “You did. Face masks, comfort food, a good christmas movie,” He puts his hand by his mouth and whispers not so quietly, “and a little alcohol.” You hum happily and make grabby hands in the direction of the alcohol and cookies Bucky brought in pointing at him and saying “You. Are my favorite.”

“Hey! What the hell! This was all my idea.” You raise an eyebrow at Clint and he squawks indignantly. “It was!” You can’t help but laugh, pulling your legs from where they were folded underneath you and wrapping them around Clint like he’d been doing earlier. “You’ll always be my favorite, hun.” He winks at you, placing a sloppy kiss on your cheek. Bucky is now grabbing Nat and plopping them both down on the couch at your back, forming a similar cuddle pile to earlier, now just with the addition of you. 

It’s been two long months of being alone with no one to talk to, none of Clint’s big smiles and dumb dad jokes (and most importantly, no Lucky.), none of Tasha’s softness that’s reserved only for the people she loves, none of Bucky’s giant hoodies and his amazing cooking. And maybe two months isn’t  _ that  _ long but it felt like it, and you want nothing more than to be a little buzzed and curled up in between all of them. 

Your peaceful train of thought is interrupted when Clint drops a glob of freezing cold black gel onto your face and starts to spread it around. “God, Clint! That’s freezing!” He just shrugs and smooths it out across your face. Behind you, Tasha is spreading the grey gel on Bucky, who is complaining just as much as you are. This stuff is really really cold. Luckily for you, once Clint and Nat finish lathering your faces in the masks, they turn to do it to themselves and Clint spends the entire time complaining much louder than you had. It’s karmic justice, and really, it’s the little things in life that make you happy. 

Clint has yet to tell you what the movie is but when he gets up to get it started, you realize why. He picked Die Hard. You and Tasha have been arguing with Clint and Bucky for months that Die Hard is not a Christmas movie, going as far to tweet Bruce Willis about it. The boys still refuse to believe that it’s not a christmas, even after Bruce Willis replied with “It’s a goddamn Bruce Willis movie, boys. Not Christmas.”

“Really Clint?” He nods, a mischievous smile on his lips before pulling you tight against him again. “Hmm, hand me a piece of pizza?” 

______________

The four of you watch the movie in relative peace, Bucky, -weirdly enough- is the one to cause the ruckus. When the timer you’d set for the face masks goes off, well, let’s just say taking Bucky’s off was a bit more painful than the others.

“Tash?” She looks up at him, immediately realizes her mistake. Her eyes are wide and a bit sympathetic but she is doing a poor job at hiding her amusement. Bucky sighs. “This stuff isn’t supposed to go in my beard is it?” Nat sputters and shakes her head and Bucky is whining again because they have to peel it off and that shit hurts when it’s not stuck in facial hair. Beyond your laughter, you do sympathize.

But it’s an odd picture to see the fearsome Winter Soldier tearing up while pulling off his face mask.

It takes him almost 20 minutes to finally pull it off, and by the end, it hurts so bad, he makes Nat just rip off the last of it around his eyes. Which of course, was a big mistake. The moment it came off Bucky threw his face into Tasha’s chest and you could hear the litany of curses that bled from his mouth. Clint couldn’t hear it, he’d taken his aids out a while ago, but he could relate, he’d done it the first time him and Tash had done face masks. 

____________

It’s nearly midnight when you start to drift to sleep again, Tasha is asleep, her head in your lap. You’ve bashed through four Christmas movies. Well three, and Die Hard. Your entirely too full on pizza and cookies. You’re sure you ate through 3/4 of Bucky’s cookies. But it’s nice, it leaves you with this warm and fuzzy feeling that’s entirely too ironic with the holiday cheer surrounding you. 

Clint took your hair out from the braid after you pulled off the face masks and was now running one hand through the hair again, carefully pulling out the flecks of the mask that had gotten in your hairline. It was probably what was lulling you to sleep. You fight the strong pull and press your lips to the calloused skin of his palm, at least where you can reach. You pull your hands from Natasha’s grip and sign as best you can to Clint,  _ Thank you. I didn’t realize how much I needed this. _ He only hums deep in his chest and presses his lips to your forehead. You reach across Tash and poke Bucky’s shoulder, who is clearly about to crash hard, his eyes flutter close only to spring back open every few seconds and you know the only reason he is staying awake is the bet he made with you and Clint that he would be the last to fall asleep. He is pretty notorious for being the first to fall asleep during team movie nights. 

He won’t ever admit it, but it’s easier for him to fall asleep surrounded by the team and people he trusts then when he is alone with himself. Though it’s extremely rare to find any of the four of you without each other. Whoever is out on an op, it is guaranteed to see the others in together, cuddling or sleeping, or really just spending time together. If the boys are out, its you and Nat, if it’s you and Tash, the boys find comfort in each other. It’s a nice balance for a group of touch starved assassins.

You sign to him as well, unwilling to break the air of comfort by using your voice,  _ thank you. Now, sleep.  _ He gives you an incredulous look, silently telling you he won’t lose the bet.  _ I don’t care about the bet. Sleep.  _

You should get everyone at least to the bed or somewhere more comfortable than the couch, you know you are going to wake up with a kink in your neck and most of your body sore but you don’t care, it’s just how it is and you know none of you would ever change it for anything. 

**Author's Note:**

> I'm human and need validation to find motivation. If you enjoyed this, please leave a comment and let me know! You can find me on tumblr under the same name!


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